Yeah, okay, so it's been forever since I posted here. Oh wells! ;)

I've got another, yes ANOTHER blog up and running. Since I have rediscovered my joy of reading (in translation - since I graduated and raised a baby to where she actually sleeps through the night giving me some reading time), I have been reading nonstop. Literally. 30+ books since January. Anyway...

The point is, I read all the time and then the book that I've just finished goes to sit on the shelf next to its cousins. Oh how I love the look of all my pretty books. Well, I realized, why not do something constructive with my obsession? When I was a teenager and my mom and I would go to movies all the time we would write reviews for the McChord AFB newspaper. Great fun, good outlet. So, that's what I'm doing here...or there...you know!

http://ajourneyofbooks.blogspot.com

There's even a contest going on right now for a free copy of Melissa Marr's Wicked Lovely to get some lucky reader started on her books (if there's anyone that hasn't already) in preparation for next week's release of Fragile Eternity. All you have to do is comment. No joke! Anyway, stop by. Say hi. Livejournal buds, help remind me that I'm not all alone out here in cyberspace. I might get lonely...and crawl in a hole losing all value of personal hygiene as I live like a hermit.

;)

Is anyone ESL or does anyone know someone else that is ESL? I have an assignment due tomorrow afternoon for one of my ESL Masters classes and I can't finish it! I need to have someone that speaks English as their second language or grew up doing so complete a survey for me. I'll include the questions here in case anyone has connections.

I don't even care if the answers are one word! Plus, it's anonymous so no worries about names or what not.

It's set up for the student and parent, but someone could just fill out the parent section as they think their parent would or just ignore it. It's designed for school aged children so an adult would just have to think back a little.

Thanks!

For the student:
1. What kinds of literacy opportunities are available to you at home?
2. How many books do you think you have in your home?
3. Do you now, or do you remember reading books at home with family in the past?
4. Who did you live with at home? Did you do any activities with them? Did you get any help on school work at home?
5. What do your parents think of school? Did they go to school in the United States? Did you get any sort of homework help at home?
6. What language or languages do your parents speak? What about the rest of your family? What language or languages do you speak?
7. Where were you born? If you were born outside of the U.S., when did you move here and why?
8. Did you go to school outside of the U.S.? If so, what do you remember about the teacher, the classroom and the other students?
9. What would be an ideal classroom environment for you? How would a terrific classroom look and work?
10. How does a great teacher act and what do they do?
11. What is culture? What is your culture?
12. Do you celebrate any special traditions or ceremonies?

For the parent(s):
1. What should I know about your student? What makes your student unique?
2. What is your goal for the year regarding your student?
3. What are your overall goals for you student?
4. If you had to teach your student something new, how would you do it? Did your student learn how to ride a bike? If so, how did you teach him/her?

Ever wanted to annoy someone, but wanted to be so discretely subtle that they think they're just going crazy? Check out this app from officewarfare.net which can do just that.

read more | digg story

Okay, I wrote about saving the Harp Seal Pups, now I'm going to write about saving the Human Pups. You see, each year there are many premature babies born and not all of them make it. The March for Babies, previously known as the March for Dimes, has set out to raise money for research to help give babies the healthiest possible start before they're even born. Their goal is to lower the number of premature babies born through education and adequate health care. In an ideal world, all babies would make it to full term and be happy and healthy. Let's work to get there!

That being said, every year people all over the country join the March for Babies. I did it a few times in high school and am now taking it back up. Our local March for Babies is this Saturday, March 5th. I know it's late notice, but if you're willing, I could really use your support (and sponsorship). This march is a fundraiser and fundraisers only work if we're able to raise funds! I'm here to ask you to visit my March for Babies personal site, take a look around and if you feel like contributing, go ahead and do so. I've already sponsored a few friends, so I know the site is easy to navigate and the sponsorship process is fairly easy and painless. Really, when we're talking about babies, is $10 too much?

Now that I've tugged on your heart strings a bit, I'll leave you to it.

In Lily news, we got her to sleep in her crib for about 3 hours last night. That's the first time she's slept more than 15 minutes in her crib. Of course she was totally passed out when we laid her in there, but it's a start. I was going to take pictures but I had a feeling that it would wake her up, so maybe I'll take some another time. ;D

Don't forget - http://www.marchforbabies.org/cinnleigh

This is coming off of the heels of the Dr. Phil episode on teens having sex.

Do I think schools should be handing out birth control? No. Do I think the nurse at the high school should have condoms available? Yes.

Do I think abstinence only should be taught? No. Do I think sex education should be taught? Yes. Kids need to know how to get birth control, the emotion and physical consequences of sex, how and when ovulation occurs, how long sperm live and the detailed aspects of how conception occurs.

Should sex ed be left up to the parents? Ideally, but then again, so should feeding your kids. If you think it's appropriate to pull the sex ed curriculum out of schools (providing they even have it), you might as well pull the breakfast program, the free/reduced lunch program and the summer breakfast programs from school. It's the parents' responsibility to feed their kids just as much as it is their responsibility to educate their children about sex. "Oh, but if we don't feed the kids they'll starve and die." Right, and if we don't educate the kids about sex, they could also die. Too many kids get STDs anymore and WAY too many kids leave their babies in dumpsters because they feel like there is no alternative.

So, that's my opinion. You don't think my child should be taught about sex education in school, well I don't think the nutrition of your child should be left up to the school.

Hasta!

Alabama has been pretty fun so far. The plane rides over were a pain (two layovers and three flights) especially because of some jackass 20 something year old guys that were bitching as soon as we sat down. Lily was totally silent and they were still saying, "Damn we should have bought ear plugs" about 20 times before even take off. Jerks. She did end up having a meltdown on that flight but it's because they moved my seat to the bulkhead where I didn't have anything in front of me (no wall or seat) so I couldn't get to her toys or bottle and she wouldn't nurse. When I say meltdown I mean that she cried for 3 minutes. 3 minutes of a 80 minute flight is certainly not the end of the world and yet jackass boys and first class were ticked at me. Oh well. The other flights had decent people on them that were very supportive.

So far we have walked the beach everyday. It's been fairly windy here so the one day that we tried to sit on the beach didn't end very well. We decided to walk instead. Lily has done superbly in her backpack. She'll watch the water and eventually fall asleep. Each time we've gone has been about 2 hours of walking, so I'm way impressed by my little bug. I have a bunch of shells that I'm very proud of. They're oh so pretty. My mom and Les helped me collect them of course (hard to bend over with a baby in a backpack). They have some HUGE ones that we were going to try to get this morning but alas, that didn't work. When they got their big ones, it was at like 6 in the morning. We were going to go this morning but it is just POURING rain. Oh well.

That's all for now. I'll get some pictures up soon.

Hasta!

It might take a while to go through, but here's the video.

Lily rolled from her back to her tummy! She can now roll both ways!!!

Yayayayayayayayayayayayay!

P.S. Cereal is going interestingly. I uploaded a video from her fourth day trying it and when it finally goes through I'll post it. :D

So there's all this hooplah lately in the news about children's sleepwear and how a lot of it isn't fire retardant like it's supposed to be. So many children are burned each year because of it.

Why is the concern only over sleepwear? Are you putting your children to sleep on top of a heater? If there is a fire going on in your child's room, I'm pretty sure they're going to be hurt, fire retardant sleepwear or not.

I just don't get it

Poll #1116706 Solids
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 5

If you have children, when did you start them on solids foods (i.e. rice cereal, jar food)?

http://www.beliefnet.com/story/194/story_19451_1.html

What an ignorant a-hole. I will never call myself a breastfeeding nazi (although I do find myself questioning the mom's buying formula...even though I have to do the same thing) but good lord this article made me fume!!!!!

Guess what - WOMAN'S BREASTS ///ARE/// A FEEDING STATION! Jesus! Who gives a rat's rear end if breastfeeding de-eroticizes them. Good!!! Then maybe it would make the world more comfortable with women feeding their children in public. If you're marriage is based solely on sex and boobs, I'm sorry, but you have more problems than breastfeeding!

Another thing...sex was meant for *duhn duhn duhn* REPRODUCTION! If you don't want to know that a baby comes out of your wife's "special erotic place" you're too f-ing immature to have anything to do with it anyway.

Why is it that everyone thinks cow's milk is sooooo dandy? Hunny, I'm sorry you're feeling jealous that our child is feeding from your happy toys, let's feed him formula that was derived from the milk of some poor cow who was strapped to a machine (and will be for the rest of its miserable life) after its calf was ripped away from her (while being fed other chemicals). Doesn't that just sound better? You have issues with my "feeding stations" feeding our child, so let's feed him the milk of another species. Why stop at cows? Let's feed our son rat milk! Yay rat milk!

Seeeeeeeee, fuming. :(

So my mom made this awesome goosebumpy trailer for her book that is now out in print. If you would kindly head to http://thenewcoveytrailerawards.blogspot.com/ , check out her trailer (#21 Love of My Heart) and vote for it in the two contests if you like it, I would be highly appreciative!!!!

I've made $25.15 so far!!! Yayayayayayayayayayayayay!!!!!!!!!!

I found this website called cashcrate and have made $7 so far today! If I keep this up, I should make a ton by the end of the month.

I found the site from my friend Julie - she made $351 last month, but only $50 this month as she hasn't had much time.

Cool!!!

Hey, so Kathryn sent me a link to a website discussing how to make some money from home and one of the ideas was "professional blogging." I looked into it and saw bloggerwave.com. Bloggerwave is basically a place where I can write up cool little reviews for them, post them on my blog and make money! Woot! Soooo, you might see some of these reviews from time to time. Don't worry, I won't write about anything that isn't pertinent to me (i.e. you won't be seeing anything about Viagra!). Heh. If you'd rather not be on the filter for this, just let me know!

P.S. You should totally look into this for yourselves. It looks intriguing.

In other news, I started working again and Lily started daycare. I'm not very pleased about this but you gotta do what you gotta do. Who knows, maybe getting out of the house will do me some good. Lily's doing great at daycare. She's with a lady that has her own 2.5 year old daughter. While there Lily not only learned how to take a bottle but also how to sleep alone in the bassinet! Good girl!!!!! :D

bloggerwave

Veterans make up one in four homeless people in the United States, though they are only 11 percent of the general adult population.


http://digg.com/offbeat_news/1_Out_of_4_Homeless_Are_Veterans